Out of Site

Where to begin? It’s been awhile since I’ve written, and I don’t really know where I left off, or what’s gone on in my life in the past few weeks. It has been quite eventful; I know that much.

Vacation anyone?

We’ll start at a logical point: my little vacation at the end of June. Kelly, another volunteer in Guatemala, showed up in Chahal on Thursday afternoon. She was the first person to visit me here; it was fun to be able to show off my town to her. She was jealous, but I do have the picturesque Peace Corps site (although I am slightly biased). We took off early Friday morning, hoping the ominous bridge about an hour outside of town would not be flooded. Luckily, it didn’t rain cows (that’s the phrase here) the night before, so we made it to Rio Dulce (Sweet River).

Here in Chahal, obviously, we have a nice river, but Rio Dulce is a large body of water, which I have missed, especially since a year ago at this time I was going out on Yellowstone Lake daily.

Aguas Calientes: becoming one with the bats

In Rio Dulce we went on a little excursion to Aguas Calientes (hot waters). It’s a thermal spring that becomes a creek and then a waterfall which joins with a cold creek below. It was beautiful; I felt like I was back in Yellowstone … aww the smell of sulfur. Before we took our hot showers, we followed the cold creek upstream until it disappeared inside a cave. As I’m sure you can easily guess, I went inside. How could I not? The guide told me that about 200 meters inside I would find a large waterfall. I had never seen a waterfall inside of a cave, so off I went. Kelly, however, did not feel the inclination to join me and the guide stayed with her.

Alone. Thrilling. I swam in with my headlamp. Within about a minute there was no longer daylight streaming in and with every stroke it became louder and louder with the approaching waterfall. I want to be brave and say I wasn’t scared, but I admit, my heart was racing a bit. Swimming inside a deep, dark cave alone with a huge waterfall (not knowing if any dangers related to that lay ahead), and bats flying in front of my face trying to eat the insects before I inhaled them – yes, it made me a bit anxious, but that made the experience that much better. When I got to the waterfall, I climbed up the rocks and stood next to it. I did exercise enough good sense, though, to not swim in it – who knows what kind of undercurrent it has, or if there’s a secret cave below where half the water flows into and where I would spend the rest of my days treading water and eating bats. Not exactly my idea of a good time.

When I reemerged from the cave, we hiked back to Aguas Calientes and relaxed there for awhile. I set off to hike on my own to the spring. I had climbed up to the top of the waterfall when the guide got up from his log to accompany me. I shouted across the creek that I wanted to go alone, but he followed anyway because some other tourists were interested in going. I disappeared into the woods in front of them and took off running on another trail – I wanted some time alone in the woods. After a bit, I headed back and took the trail toward the spring; they were long gone. I took it all in, then worked my way back to the waterfall, where I noticed some tree like vines which were just incredible. They were woody and thick, and each one intricately wrapped itself all around multiple trees. It was difficult to follow them from the beginning to the end. Anyway, I climbed back down and Kelly told me that the guide had come back on a completely different trail because he had gone off looking for me! I should probably feel bad, but I don’t. I’m so tired of having to have guides here. I’m not used to being guided on hikes. I needed that escape; he’ll get over it.

Friday night we spent in Rio Dulce at a hostel right on the river, danced a bit, of course, then took off in the morning to Livingston which lies at the mouth of Rio Dulce on the Caribbean Coast. Finally in a boat again! It’s about a 2 hour boat ride, and gorgeous the whole way. There are a few scattered villages, but not much development. The broad river eventually narrows into a steep, narrow, breath-taking canyon, then widens again as it approaches the sea. Despite being soaked by the rain, it was beautiful.

Livingston: back on the water

In Livingston we experienced a bit of the Garifuna culture. Garifunas are black-latinos: escaped slaves that settled on the Caribbean coast throughout Central America. They have their own language and some awesome music and dancing.

On Sunday we hopped into a boat that took us up the coast to Siete Altares (7 Altars), the site of the first Tarzan film. It’s a sparkling blue waterfall in the jungle, but just a 15 minute hike from the beach. Despite the hoards of people, it was beautiful, and fun to jump off of! Then we continued in the boat up the coast to Playa Blanca (White Beach), where we relaxed in hammocks underneath coconut trees for the rest of the afternoon.

We stayed in Livingston until Tuesday, not doing much, just relaxing until we had to be in Antigua for meetings. On Monday, though, I walked up the beach to go back to Siete Altares; it was just that beautiful, and I needed more time alone in the woods. Along the way I met some little boys who were scooping up little crabs and clams in the sand. They were so excited to show me how many they had gathered up and offered to give me some, saying how delicious they were. I politely declined, telling them that I didn’t have a stove to cook them on. “You can buy one,” they told me.

Tuesday morning we left on a boat heading south along the coast to Puerto Barrios, described to us as “a toilet,” but the cheapest way to get out. It’s the port where the infamous railroads full of bananas led to back in the days when Chiquita Banana was trying to rule Guatemala. (If you’re interested in the coup that the U.S. CIA helped to facilitate of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954, I suggest that you read Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Some other good books about Guatemala are The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? and I, Rigoberta Menchu.)

From there we went to Antigua for meetings, and more importantly, the Peace Corps 4th of July party. I have to say, it was the best 4th of July party I’ve ever been to … and it wasn’t the USA!

Volcan Pacaya: playing in lava

Saturday very well could be the highlight of my week. I finally went backpacking again. It’s been since OCTOBER! A group of us went to Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano near Antigua. It’s a pretty easy hike up, at least once you get through the children renting hiking sticks and the teenagers who have graduated from sticks to renting horses. We set up camp next to the lava field with a perfect view of the spewing cone. Once it was dark, we packed our bags with our dinners and plenty of marshmallows and set out for our trek across the lava. Maneuvering was a little difficult in the dark (even with headlamps), especially when we got to areas with hot flowing lava underneath the cool lava we were walking on top of. Some of us hiked up to a small cone that was somewhat active to check it out. However, once we made the ascent, it became more active! Perhaps it didn’t like us. (Here’s another near-death hiking story to add to my repertoire, even though I wasn’t in Yellowstone with Caleb.) It started shooting the lava closer to us. Then add in the sound of the escaping gas, it was enough to make me scurry back down to “safety.” After that, it was time to go to the river of lava to poke it with a stick. By this point, I had had enough of red hot lava and was content with waiting on the black, cool lava for marshmallows, but really, have you ever known me to refuse an adventure when other people are doing it? So I went, a bit freaked out, but it turned out to be amazing. If you were wondering, sticks don’t easily enter flowing lava. Although it’s moving, it’s still relatively solid. It takes a bit of force for the stick to break into it, and then pretty quickly it will catch on fire, just like it felt my shoes were going to do! After that, my adventure-bucket was filled to the brim and I was content to retire to the non-flowing, non-glowing lava and toast my tuna and roast my marshmallows, which were delicious. Eventually we made our way back to camp to relax around the campfire. (It was so refreshing to finally need a fire to stay warm.)

Camping on Pacaya was a perfect way to end the week, and exactly what I’ve been needing. I was ready to get back to site, though, after a long week away; however, I was not excited for the 10+ hour trip. But it’s worth it to live in Chahal!

Back to Chahal

In Chahal, I was back to work right away. Tuesday was the day I’ve been planning for a couple months to reforest with the school that I’m teaching in. I was a little nervous because I left all the final details for my counterpart to work out, but he was on top of it. I was quite impressed!

Sadly, all the trees in the tree nursery I made with my students died. I don’t think I have a green thumb, because also, most of my vegetables in my garden have died. Only the squash and cucumber have survived. However, I blame it on the hot days and the pounding rain at night, plus the dogs that hopped the fence. Anyway, even though all the trees died, we had reserves in the municipal tree nursery. We brought the trees to the school and walked with the kids to the reserve. The mayor and the school superintendent showed up, among other “important people.” Each said a few words (everything is a big production here) and then we planted our trees. It turned out well.

That was the highlight of my week, though. I felt like I had lost some ground in my relationships in the muni after being gone for so long, which made going to the office not much fun. Then, worst of all, I learned that a neighbor from my childhood (who was basically a grandmother to me) passed away. Things like that are hard anywhere, but especially when I’m away from my family and everyone who knew her, and alone here without anyone to get a real hug from. It made me wish I had a site mate. I was ready to get out of here for the weekend to go hang out with other volunteers, but at the last minute I decided to stay. It’s a long, expensive trip, especially after having just traveled. Being here in Chahal, though, was exactly what I needed. Saturday I went to a beautiful farm with part of my host family and brought home a fish to eat. That night there was a dance, and on Sunday the whole family came over to my house for a huge lunch and invited me to join them. Then, that evening, we all went and played basketball. It was a perfect weekend and now I’m back to being in love with my site!

Now I’m off again for Antigua for some training sessions. Sunday, though, I’m running my next half marathon! Wish me luck!

To put some images with the descriptions, check out my facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028411&l=68020&id=27500355